Daisies
by rrrpv
Summary: "Let me guess…you like red roses, don't you?" (Wherein Anna likes daisies, Elsa is smitten, and somewhere in between, she begins stressing herself out over rings.) :: elsa/anna, non-incest. modern!au.


_(uploaded — 1.26.15) _:: _[(... ... ... yeah ive got no excuse for this) (i can't help i'm cliché as hell bc my mind doesn't work when it isn't trying to churn out various gruesome ways to kill my characters _-_-_)]_ :: _{playlist:_ "love story"; _taylor swift.}_

:.

_I don't own _Frozen_. You can also find this on AO3._

* * *

**Daisies**

.

.

_i think we're going somewhere_  
_we're on to something good here_  
_there's only one thing left to do_  
_drop all i have and go with you_

* * *

**arc first.**  
_out of mind, out of state_

-—

Elsa was going to propose. She _swears._

Because it was _time_, and she and Anna'd been dating for nearly five years now, and she'd _talked _about this with Kristoff back at boot camp before, all the time, and there was only _one month _left until she was supposed to be deployed on a military tour, and Kristoff had assured her one thousand percent that there was _no_ freaking way Anna wouldn't say yes. It was for that reason that Elsa really wanted to make it big; something important and unforgettable, something meaningful and planned out, something Anna wouldn't expect from her in a million years.

But first, she should probably buy the ring.

:.

"...Nice engagement rings are _really_ expensive," she weakly said as a means of explanation three days of fruitless searching later to a ridiculously amused Kristoff.

"'Course they are," he chuckled, folding his arms. "They're hunks of metallic precious metal encrusted in equally precious stones, and since the whole thing is made out of said precious materials, it's gonna be expensive."

At Elsa's incredulous look, he raised his arms. "Hey, I was an economics major in college before I transferred!"

"...What does economics have to do with _anything?"_

"Well, we're talking about costs and expenses, so I figured —"

"If I recall correctly, you were also nearly failing in all your degree-related classes," the platinum blonde deadpanned.

_"Exactly."_

Elsa swatted him.

* * *

**arc deploy.**  
_trying to keep my head on straight_

-—

On the morning Elsa left, Anna woke up to a cold bed and a small bundle of daisies on her pillow.

:.

It was not as if Elsa's departure had been unexpected — it had been anything but; both of them had known that it was coming — but it still cut deep into Anna's heart on the day before the platinum blonde had to leave.

"I _will_ be back before you know it, okay?" Elsa promised that night, long and pale arms pulling Anna into an embrace that screamed with love and determination.

"Back. In _twelve months,"_ muttered Anna, shoving her face ungracefully into the crook of Elsa's neck and breathing in the soft scent of lavender that always seemed to linger near her girlfriend's skin. "That's like, a year. And a year is like a long time. And a long time is like _forever."_

Elsa grinned, her hand drawing small circles on Anna's back. "I think that we are going to have to reevaluate your idea of 'forever.'"

"But it is!" Anna bit her lip, feeling something wet and hot beginning to sting at her eyes. She shifted onto her side, wriggling loose from Elsa's arms before turning her head away and hoping that her girlfriend hadn't seen the shimmering tears. "I just...I don't want you to leave," she confessed, traitorous sobs beginning to storm their way through into her voice. "Y-you could _die_ out...out there. A-and I don't think — I don't think that I c-could ever stand it if I lost you..."

_"Anna."_

Elsa's voice was stern all of a sudden, commanding and so, so full of conviction.

"Look at me." Hands gently grasped at her arms, twisting Anna around until she and Elsa were staring at each other in the eye, their faces so close that she could feel the blonde's mint-scented breath puffing over her cheeks.

"I will _not_ die. I will _not_ leave you alone, Anna." She drew Anna in even closer than they had been before, crushing their bodies together in a tight hug. A hand ran soothingly through her hair, even as Anna finally gave into the full brunt of all her emotions and quaked in the circle of Elsa's arms, wishing that she'd never have to let her go. Never have to let her go to board the airplane; never have to let her go to spend twelve months in fucking _Afghanistan_, because she's just so damn _upset_ and _oh, god —_

"I love you."

:.

"Hey, what's your favorite flower?" Elsa had asked one day, when Anna was running her fingers through the blonde's soft locks, enjoying how the silky hair slipped and slid through her hands as smooth as a river.

"Hmm?"

"Let me guess," said Elsa, plucking a white daisy sprouting from a cluster of flowers near her hips before teasingly waving it under Anna's nose. "You like red roses, don't you?" She laughed, tinkling bells and and silver chimes ringing through the air all before she tilted her head up, effectively disentangling Anna's hands from her hair, much to the latter party's displeasure. "I mean, they're gorgeous and beautiful and absolutely brimming with _sophisticated grace _—"

Anna swatted lightly at the bump of Elsa's shoulders, nestled comfortably in the cradle of the strawberry blonde's crossed legs. "Hey! I am _full_ of sophisticated grace, thank you very much."

Her girlfriend let out an unbecoming snort even as Anna slipped her hands back into the blonde's hair. "Yes, and I am sure that my mother's entire stack of carefully stacked salad plates decided to take a leap of faith off from the kitchen counter by themselves."

Anna tugged at Elsa's locks spitefully before deigning to reply. "Well...um, going back to the whole flowers thing — I really like daisies." A pause, "Really like them."

Elsa snorted at Anna's horrible attempt to change the subject, which had been about as subtle as a bull moose rampaging its way through a pile of delicately crafted glass sculptures. "...Seriously? _Daisies?"_

The platinum blonde sounded way more surprised than she had any right to be. Anna huffed and folded her knees upward, sending Elsa tumbling to the ground in a disheveled heap.

_"Ow..."_

"Daisies are really pretty!" Anna insisted, crossing her arms indignantly. "I mean...they're simple, but pretty. And I know that they're not the most, y'know, _sophisticated_, or romantic, or anything — but, I don't know, I like them because of that. I mean, they're easy to understand. See the way they're just so _open?"_ She clasped the daisy threaded through the gaps between Elsa's fingers with her own. "Just, white petals, with a yellow center? Right? There's no fancy colors or anything, but...they're so clean. And fresh. They're just..._daisies._ Like, _daisies. _You get it?"

Elsa had propped herself up on her forearms, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched in the shape of a broad question mark. The daisy spun around her fingertips, green among pink, a pirouetting ballerina flitting around in a pinwheel of white and yellow.

"Well, I am not sure I totally do," she said quietly. "But..."

The daisy abruptly stopped spinning, and Elsa turned over with a smile before depositing herself in front of Anna, blue eyes sparkling with thinly concealed mirth and unadulterated happiness. She offered the daisy to the redhead, proposition style.

"For you."

Anna accepted the daisy, and her smile was blinding.

:.

Afghanistan was hot and dry and dangerous and worst of all, Anna-less.

For the first couple of days, Elsa woke up with a start and the hollow pang of disappointment every single morning, because there was no Anna, no _nothing_ in her curled arms: no mound of strawberry blonde bed hair tickling her nose nor heavy arms splayed across her torso nor any presence at all.

After that, it got easier to deal with. She would still wake up with empty bed sheets and brush her teeth and go to eat and run drills without the bubbly redhead by her side.

It got easier to deal with, that was true, but it didn't mean that Elsa had to like it.

Not one bit.

:.

Timing wasn't right at all. It never was. And Elsa _hated_ the horrible signal reception in the home base.

The calls she had with Anna were short and choppy, because the phones she used in this god-forsaken, fucking desert were of the twenty-years-old variety, clunky and tan and altogether painful to use.

Anna remained optimistic.

_"I mean, hey,"_ she had laughed over a very crackly call one time, _"'s better than having no time and no signal to talk at all, right?"_

"Right," said Elsa, but the pang in her heart still wished for more.

* * *

**arc return.**  
_pressing on, all my distress is going, going, gone_

-—

Nine months in, there was a skirmish and Elsa nearly lost a limb.

She spent days afterward jumping at every little noise, waking up in the middle of the night with cold sweat dashed across her forward, and clutch her right arm to make sure it wasn't a phantom limb and it was actually _there._

She was tired and she wanted Anna and she wanted to stop _fighting._

:.

The airport terminal was a fucking_ nightmare._

So many people. _Hostiles._

So many noises. _Gunshots._

So much everything._ Bombs_.

It was too many and too much.

Carrying her heavy bag in her hand, Elsa turned and turned, lost, blue eyes frantically searching for Anna through an influx of human beings, sharp-cut business suits mixed with everyday casual wear that Elsa felt as if she stuck out like a sore thumb in her ragged military gear.

_So many people._

"ELSA!"

Immediately dropping the bag and falling to one knee, Elsa moved to pull her handgun from her holster at her thigh, only...it's not there. But Anna is and, oh god, she almost figuratively shot her.

Boots thumped on the tile of the airport, miniature machine gunfire. But when Anna embraced her on the ground, Elsa finally felt...relaxed. She'd only seen Anna's face once for the two minutes she'd been back, but she remembers every plane of it as she kisses it desperately.

Tears pattered onto the redhead's T-shirt even as Elsa dropped her head to Anna's shoulder and a warm hand slid up and down her back.

"'S okay, Elsa!" came the clear, cheery voice she'd missed so _much_ over the past year. "You're safe. It's okay, I'm here."

Elsa only clutched Anna tighter and let her tears fall.

* * *

_next chapter coming out tomorrow, probably. it's also a fuckton of fluff. this thing's just going to be a short and fluffy and pointless two-shot bc apparently i have a fluff quota i need to fulfill._

_all the best._


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